I-Team editor's book explores farmhouse murders

Wayne and Sharmon Stock seemed to have no enemies when they were callously murdered by two late-night intruders.

The year was 2006. The grisly slayings took place on a farm in southeastern Nebraska — more than 570 miles from east-central Wisconsin.

The shotgun slayings conjured up comparisons to the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kan. That was the tragic case in Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood."

Site of the Nebraska farmhouse murders.(Photo: Submitted)

Barely a week into the Nebraska double-murder investigation, the small-town sheriff announced that two Nebraska cousins had been taken into custody. Each was charged with two counts of double murder.

At that time, I was a reporter covering the shocking small-town case for the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska's largest newspaper.

I figured the police had everything sewn up.

Boy, was I wrong.

Little did I know that the gruesome farmhouse murders had little to do with Nebraska but a lot to do with Wisconsin.

Ring from Wisconsin that cracked case.(Photo: Submitted)

In the following months, excellent detective work here in Wisconsin led to the real killers — a pair of thrill-seeking teenagers who lived around Beaver Dam and Horicon in Dodge County.

Incidently, their wave of crime also traced back to Outagamie County. Less than a month before the farmhouse murders in Nebraska, the teenagers were suspected of stealing a van and torching it near Nichols, Wis.

After Nichols, their crimes intensified. They grew more bold and daring.

In the end, thanks to an obscure clue they left at the farmhouse, they were ultimately linked to the Nebraska murders and sent to prison.

The two Nebraska cousins were released from jail. The case also involved an unexpected turn: an evidence-planting scandal involving a prominent Nebraska CSI director.

In 2010, after the case concluded, I set out to write a true-crime book during my free time.

As I chipped away at the book, in late 2012, an exciting career opportunity brought me to the Fox Cities as editor of the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team, headquartered at Post-Crescent Media.

Here in Appleton, I continued to plug away on the book project in my free time, making necessary edits and revisions to the manuscript.

Stolen truck from Wisconsin.(Photo: Submitted)

Finally, about a week ago, three crates of cardboard boxes arrived on our front porch. My excited wife called me at work to break the news.

My first true-crime book, "Bloody Lies: A CSI Scandal in the Heartland," was now out in paperback.

An excerpt:

By late March 2006, Fester and Reid stole a van and drove it into a remote field toward the Appleton area. With no one around, Fester poured a can of gasoline on the van. He used his lighter to set it ablaze. The teenage hoodlums watched orange flames consume the van. They fled before anyone called police. In the coming days, Fester and Reid decided to go for broke and make a fresh start along one of North America's oceans. They wanted to rid their pathetic lives of Wisconsin once and for all. Even though Reid and Fester didn't own a vehicle, they did have a plan.

Over the noon hour on April 11, Jessica Reid watched from a distance as local resident Ned Thompson went inside one of the stores in downtown Horicon to run a brief errand. Reid raced toward Thompson's white Mercury Mountaineer and jumped inside. She then backed into another parked vehicle, causing a huge scene. After regaining control, Reid peeled around the corner. She parked in front of Fester's apartment on East Lake Street. "Let's go!" she screamed. "We're getting out of here!"

— John Ferak: 920-993-7115 or jferak@postcrescent.gannett.com; on Twitter @johnferak

Bloody Lies: A CSI Scandal in the Heartland

Retail price is $24.95. The book will be sold at bookstores across Wisconsin including the Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/1lszmfdn in Grand Chute. It also can be purchased online through The Kent State University Press http://bit.ly/1qLoSdS.

The book is also available through online retailer Amazon in both paperback and Kindle version at http://amzn.to/1nMDBPk.